I was never really there. There are great swaths of Grace and Whit's babyhoods that I simply don't remember.
By letting go of harmful desire, I got more of the physical depth that I'd wanted before, yet the shapes of the poses barely mattered now. What did matter was how good it felt to just be with what is and let go of what isn't.
By Natasha Baker TORONTO (Reuters) - Worried about what your dog is chewing on when you're at work, or whether your home is secure whil...
There was a time when freedom was a danger to me -- or perhaps my perception of freedom was the true danger.
Will we view life as some sort of diminishing, increasingly limiting count down to the end, or will we see life as opening to an unending fount of opportunity, hope and joy? The Omer tradition, linking Passover to Shavuot, gives us the answer.
Today is a very special day. It has never happened before and it will never happen again. And we have no idea what will come next. What a great day just to be here. To show up now. The perfect day to let the past rest where it is and let the future take care of itself.
I practice active gratefulness. I was recently reminded of the power of gratefulness, and have a renewed commitment to it. Every day, I take time to think about one person, one incident, one thing, that I am grateful for. It is an act that forces me to remember how lucky I am.
I want so fiercely to fully live these years, to pay attention, not to miss a thing. But still, so often, I fail. I allow my own exhaustion or aggravation to occlude the beauty of this ordinary, flawed existence.
There is no gift you could purchase that will more profoundly enhance the emotional connections in your life than the gift of your focused attention, which explains why most people cannot distinguish between the experience of being deeply loved with being deeply heard.
When we have a friendly relationship with ourselves, when we can listen kindly to our own experience and take our own side, we are far more likely to take action and risk the unknown.
Three times a week now, as I fumble with the third sequence in my tai chi class, I have the opportunity to witness a room full of individuals practice the full sequence. And every time, I am struck by how beautiful the long sequence is, and how much I want to be in that group.
But my question remains: is it ever even possible to feel and experience a sense of utter and absolute safety in this life in the very same breath that we inhale the daily news?
Often times, people live in a constant state of past and future thoughts. In this state, you're only partially present to what's here now. It takes intention and effort to be fully present. What does it mean to be present, and how can one practice presence in the moment?
With self-compassion and patience, you can emerge from the depths of challenging times, especially if you connect with the strength that comes from truly putting your heart into the intention to move forward.
Life is short -- disease or no disease. So, in this time of splendor, joy and stress, my wish for all of you this season is that you give yourself the greatest gift of all -- give yourself a little presence.
Here and now are our birthrights -- like life. Do we need to do anything in this moment to be alive? No. Life takes care of life. Do we need to do something to be in now? No. It is already -- and always -- now. It can only ever be now.
The past is dead. We can never change it. The future is not promised to anybody. All we ever have is this moment. So, imagine a life where we live each moment like it's our last, like children do. Think of all the joy we could experience!
When painful sensations arise and we can simply meet them with clarity and presence, we can see that pain is just pain. We can listen to pain's message and respond appropriately -- taking good care.
I speak to people for a living, so I feel somewhat qualified to make the following claim: There are people who do indeed enjoy small talk, but many people hate it. Regardless of where we fall on the spectrum, however, there is an enormous pressure to engage in it.
At the time that Sue and I lived together in our 20s, there was no test for the disease, as there is now. She had no way of knowing if she would begin to lose her physical and mental capacities in 10 years -- or never.
Even when we have what we want, we still can't land in this moment. We cling to the illusion that there are indeed a set of circumstances that, once we achieve them, will finally, miraculously make this moment inhabitable.
By aligning our thoughts and actions with the law of cause and effect we can create wealth, heal ourselves, attract the desired romantic partner, and manifest the ideal lifestyle. It is important that we use this law in ways that are in alignment with our spirit and with other human beings.
I love social media, but I try to keep it balanced with exercise and of course going on walks along the water and being enveloped in the trees.
As I stood at the water's breaking edge, I gazed at the continuous ebb and flow of the tide as it crashed against the rocks. It reminded me of the constant giving and receiving flow of energy found in our universe.
The experience of self (our essential nature) is called self-referral, and it points to our internal reference point, our spirit. Object referral is where objects outside ourselves always influence us.
